Paddy McCarthy

Patrick McCarthy, known as Paddy, was born on 17 March 1871 at Cashel, Co. Tipperary, according to the SILAS dictionary entry by Edmundo Murray. He arrived in Buenos Aires in 1900 to teach English and athletics. He is one of the Irish teachers credited with helping to bring football and boxing to Buenos Aires.

SILAS says he coached boxers when the sport was still unlawful in Argentina. He taught football at Lobos Athletic Club, which the dictionary describes as the first rural football club in Buenos Aires province, founded on 3 July 1892 by Irish Argentines. Lobos had an Irish community of its own: the Irish Argentine Historical Society records a Lobos Irish College with Irish teachers, and an Irish pastor who served Lobos and Navarro. McCarthy later played for and coached Estudiantes.

He died on 10 August 1963 at the British Hospital in Buenos Aires and was buried at Chacarita. His entry rests on a single dictionary source. The wider story of Irish players in Argentine football, and of Irish-Argentine rugby and hockey, was not researched for this site and remains a gap.